Securing disenfranchisement through violence and isolation: the case of Georgians/Mingrelians in the district of Gali

Abstract

This article explores the functions of the high levels of violence, insecurity and isolation that have characterised the Gali district of Abkhazia since the end of the 1992–1993 Abkhaz War. It traces their trajectories in a 20-year timeframe, explaining the demographic and economic peculiarities of the case. It argues that violence and isolation were used to deepen the economic, social and political disenfranchisement of the Georgian/Mingrelian population within Abkhazia, which in turn served wider economic and political goals.

Keywords:

• Disenfranchisement
• violence
• isolation
• Abkhazia
• South Caucasus

Notes

1. The appellation of the CFL reflects the dispute over the status of Abkhazia. Abkhaz consider it as its border with Georgia, while Georgia considers it as an internal administrative boundary and calls it the Administrative Boundary Line.

2. While the appellation ‘de facto state’ (Pegg, International Society and the De Facto State; Lynch, Engaging Eurasia’s Separatist States; Francis, Conflict Resolution and Status) is understood as a state-like entity that lacks international recognition, there is no absolute consensus on the characterisation of Abkhazia as a political entity. They are alternatively called ‘quasi-states’ (Kolstø, ‘The Sustainability and Future’; Baev, ‘Peacekeeping and Conflict Management’), ‘unrecognised states’(King, ‘The Benefits of Ethnic War’), ‘pseudo-states’ (Kolossov and O’Loughlin, ‘Pseudo-States as Harbingers’) and ‘para-states’ (Pelczyna-Nalecz et al., ‘Para-States in the Post-Soviet Area’). While at times the denominations are used interchangeably, for some authors they point towards important differences in the level of institutionalisation that these regions have established.

3. O’Loughlin et al., ‘Inside Abkhazia’; Ó Beacháin, ‘The Dynamics of Electoral Politics’; Broers, ‘Recognising Politics in Unrecognised States’.

4. Kolossov and O’Loughlin, ‘After the Wars in the South Caucasus’; Broers, ‘Resourcing De Facto Jurisdictions’.

5. The lower Kodori valley, which reaches 60 kilometres from Sukhumi, was the locus of an armed confrontation in October 2001. A group of around 400 fighters launched an attack on Abkhazia’s capital, which was easily stopped, but left a few dozen casualties, including nine UN peacekeepers. The episode remains unclear, as the situation involved Chechen fighters with alleged Georgian and Russian support (UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General’—S/2001/1008)

6. Ethno-Kavkaz, Население Абхазии. This article refers to the Georgian and Mingrelian populations residing in, and displaced from, the Gali district, and Abkhazia more widely, as Georgian/Mingrelian, reflecting the different appellations with which they are referred to by Abkhaz de facto and Georgian authorities, and, most importantly, with which they self-identified alternately and, sometimes, interchangeably. This does not imply that all the Georgian population in Abkhazia was Mingrelian; this appellation allows for the possibility of the people designated to be one or the other, or both. However, it is worth noting that, very generally, a majority of Georgian/Mingrelian city, and especially Sukhumi, dwellers would identify as Georgians, while Mingrelians constituted the majority in rural areas and in the Gali district. The issue of Mingrelian identity has been extensively covered in: Broers, ‘Two Sons of One Mother’. Broers shows that Mingrelian identity varies throughout socio-economic and geographical contexts, and according to historical trajectories of respondents, varying from proud self-identification as Mingrelian and a renaissance of Mingrelian culture and use of the language, to a dismissal of Mingelian identity, seen as a Russian-inspired strategy of divide and rule. He also points out how Mingrelian identities largely coexist with Georgian and Russian ones alternately, the latter more for displaced Mingrelians residing in Abkhazia before 1993. The attempts by Abkhazia’s de facto authorities to institutionalise the Mingrelian language in the 1990s, and the contrary tendency of Tbilisi-based Georgian elites to minimise its importance, are clearly in line with the political goals of the two centres.

7. The Gali district is the easternmost district of Abkhazia, straddling the Georgian–Abkhaz ceasefire line. A reference to the district of Gali is fraught with dangers, as its boundaries were redesigned in 1995 by Abkhazia’s de facto authorities. Part of the former district of Gali was included in the newly established district of Tkvarcheli, reducing the territory of the Gali district but also of the Ochamchira district. Both Gali and Tkvarcheli districts are inhabited by Georgian/Mingrelian majorities, though in the case of Gali almost exclusively so. Hence, when referring to the district of Gali, there is an understanding that phenomena affecting it do not stop at the de facto administrative border between the two districts, but often involve the neighbouring areas of the Tkvarcheli district too, as well as some areas of the Ochamchira district.

8. Censuses carried out by Abkhaz de facto authorities in 2003 and 2011 still report that 98 per cent of the population of the Gali district is Georgian/Mingrelian.

9. Trier et al. Under Siege, 35.

10. Ibid.

11. Interviews with residents of district of Gali, along the Inguri River, November 2012.

12. Ibid.

13. Interview with Pierre Vischioni, former chef de mission of Première Urgence in Gali, Tbilisi, October 2012.

14. Interview with Shota Utiashvili, Head of Analytical Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, Tbilisi, July and December 2012.

15. Cohen and Deng, The Forsaken People, 293.

16. Baratelia, ‘Macroeconomic Aspects of Abkhazia’s Development’.

17. Ibid., 9.

18. A detailed study on livelihood strategies in rural Gali, Ochamchira and Tkvarcheli districts was carried out in 2004 by Paul Wooster and, although focusing on the agricultural sector, reported on alternative incomes, credit and assets (Wooster, The Agricultural Sector).

19. Baratelia, ‘Macroeconomic Aspects of Abkhazia’s Development’, 8.

20. Wooster, The Agricultural Sector.

21. Interview with Roman Dbar, Head of the State Institute of Ecology, Sukhumi, November 2012.

22. Interview with Alexandr Stranichkin, De Facto Vice-Prime Minister of Abkhazia, Sukhumi, October 2012.

23. Interview with Beslan Baratelia, Dean of the Economics Department at Sukhumi’s Abkhaz State University, Sukhumi, November 2012.

24. Interview with Vincent Demeuldre, Première Urgence, Gali, November 2012.

25. UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General’—S/1998/375.

26. Interviews with local aid workers (Mingrelian and Abkhaz), Gali, November 2012; UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General’—S/1998/497.

27. Russian peacekeepers stationed along the Inguri were also known to partake in some cross-CFL activities (selling gasoline from their bases to gas stations in Zudgidi and participating in the trade of stolen cars). The fact that they were poorly paid, and at times not paid at all, is offered as a driving factor behind their activities (Kukhianidze et al., ‘Smuggling in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali Region’, 83–84).

28. Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence.

29. Keen, Useful Enemies, 9.

30. Interview with Tom Meredith, Programme Manager of The Halo Trust, Tbilisi, October 2012.

31. Interviews with residents of district of Gali.

32. Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence.

33. This is far from a recent phenomenon, as looting and capturing lands has been a method of funding war for centuries (Redlich, De Praeda Militari). For more on looting and its conceptualisation as political violence, see: Mac Ginty, ‘Looting in the Context of Violent Conflict’.

34. Varese, ‘Is Sicily the Future of Russia?’.

35. Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence.

36. Interview with Lawrence Sheets, Senior Analyst at International Crisis Group, Tbilisi, November 2012.

37. Interviews with local aid workers (Mingrelian and Abkhaz).

38. Interviews with Paul Rimple, journalist, Tbilisi, December 2012; and Tom Meredith.

39. Interviews with local aid workers (Mingrelian and Abkhaz); residents of district of Gali.

40. ‘You know, it’s big money, and many of those who had a Kalashnikov were not good people, and they could make money with a gun’ (interviews with local aid workers—Mingrelian and Abkhaz).

41. Ibid. Assaults on local mafia chiefs, or owners of hazelnut plantations and businesses involved explosive devices and landmines being planted on the side of the road (interview with Tom Meredith).

42. Interviews with local aid workers (Mingrelian and Abkhaz); and Pierre Vischioni.

43. Interviews with Kirk Ramer, Development Contractor in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Tbilisi, September 2012; and hazelnut traders, Gali, October 2012.

44. Interview with Pierre Vischioni.

45. Keen, Useful Enemies, 197.

46. ‘People in Gali were in a very uncertain situation: were they allowed to stay? Was it safe? And there were groups that exploited this situation and charged them with a sort of tax for safety and hazelnuts’ (interview with Beslan Baratelia).

47. Prelz Oltramonti, ‘Borders, De Facto Borders and Mobility Policies’.

48. Kupatadze, ‘Political Malfeasance and Separatist Conflicts’, 188.

49. Interview with Arda-Inal Ipa, Member of the Centre for Humanitarian Programmes, Sukhumi, October 2012.

50. Conciliation Resources, The Realm of the Possible, 7.

51. Ethnic Abkhaz constituted 18 per cent of Abkhazia’s population, according to the 1989 census (Ethno-Kavkaz, Население Абхазии).

52. Interview with George Tarkhan-Mouravi, Political Analysta and Co-Director of Institute for Policy Studies, Tbilisi, December 2012.

53. Interviews with Yulia Gumba, Head of the Association ‘Businesswomen of Abkhazia’, Sukhumi, October 2012; local aid workers (Mingrelian and Abkhaz); and Pierre Vischioni.

54. Interview with Yulia Gumba.

55. Interviews with Pierre Vischioni; and Vincent Demeuldre. This was a consequence of the double bottleneck on aid programmes imposed from Tbilisi and Sukhumi, which in turn created a contrast between Gali and the rest of Abkhazia, where INGOs and IIs were largely absent, or had to keep a low profile. Notable exceptions were the Halo Trust, MSF, the Red Cross, Accion contra la Hambre, which also operated in the rest of Abkhazia, as well as a number of INGOs focusing on confidence-building programmes, such as Conciliation Resources and International Alert. It is nevertheless worth noticing that UN agencies, including when acting as implementing agents for Western donors such as the European Commission or Norwegian government, operated in both analytical and practical terms along a pattern of Gali district (plus Ochamchira, Tkvarcheli and Zugdidi districts) versus the rest of Abkhazia (Wooster, The Agricultural Sector; UNDP, Abkhazia ALIR Programme; UN Country Team in Georgia, UN Facilitated Review of Socioeconomic Needs).

56. Interviews with Gagra residents, November 2012.

57. ‘In the past, international organisations mostly helped Eastern Abkhazia, but all of Abkhazia was suffering and they drew a boundary between East and West. Our organisation tried to do the opposite, that is to integrate the East, the region of Gali’ (interview with Yulia Gumba).

58. Interview with Arda-Inal Ipa.

59. The word ghetto is mostly used in relation to the segregation of Jewish communities in Europe before 1945, and of African–American communities in the United States. It denotes a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, as a consequence of social, legal or economic pressure. In this case, the Gali district can be seen as part of wider Abkhazia in which the Georgian/Mingrelian minority lived, as a consequence of legal and economic concerns (such as, among others, difficulty of acquiring residence documents and citizenship, and expropriation of goods elsewhere in Abkhazia).

60. Human Rights Watch, Living in Limbo, 42. It was common practice, however, for the Georgian authorities to issue the declaration, while allowing the applicant who had requested the document to keep their Georgian citizenship if they so wished (interview with Guram Shonia, Head of the Institute of Democracy, Gali, November 2012).

61. According to Georgian law, acquiring Abkhaz citizenship does not entail losing Georgian citizenship (as Abkhaz citizenship is not recognised), and hence rights to benefits, but IDP support was linked to the place of displacement (interview with Guram Shonia).

62. ICG, Abkhazia: The Long Road, 20

63. Prelz Oltramonti, ‘Southbound Russia’.

64. Interviews with residents of district of Gali.

65. Institute for Democracy and Saferworld, Security for All.

66. Trier et al., Under Siege, 37.

67. Interviews with Bella Dzidzariia, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of State and Law at the Abkhazian State University, Brussels, January 2015; and Said Gezerdava, Lecturer of Law at the Abkhazian State University and Member of the Abkhazian NGO ‘Centre for Humanitarian Programmes’ (CHP), Brussels, January 2015.

68. Interview with Guram Shonia.

69. On 1 June 2014, Ankvab resigned after hundreds of demonstrators stormed his office on 27 May, denouncing the demonstrations that took place in Sukhumi as a coup d’état. Khadjimba was elected president in August with a narrow majority of the vote.

70. Interviews with hazelnut traders.

71. Conciliation Resources, The Realm of the Possible, 9.